Jawad Mian Profile picture
19 Feb, 14 tweets, 2 min read
1) I’ve noticed that I increasingly forget things.

It started with people’s names, then I'd forget plans, even early memories with my wife and children.

I began to worry what if my absent-mindedness affects my ability to think and write?
2) Once I was driving with my wife and she said excitedly, “Remember when...”

I wrack my mind, but I’m at a loss. She looks over at me and sees a blank face.
3) I quote Nietzsche to her, “The advantage of a bad memory is that one enjoys several times the same good things for the first time.”
4) She rolls her eyes.

I read her Jack London, “To be able to forget means sanity.”

Silence.
5) Often, she tells me a plan and when the day arrives, I am surprised. I won’t recall our conversation.

I thought this is her way of manipulating me but I just suck at remembering things.
6) It was a relief to discover that there is nothing wrong with me.

A growing body of neuroscience research in the past decade shows that forgetting things can actually be a byproduct of rigorous thinking, smooth decision-making, or heightened creativity.
7) We are so caught up in our everyday lives that to think and act more clearly, the brain balances remembering and forgetting gracefully to facilitate optimal use of memory, helping to lessen the cognitive load.
8) In other words, the brain is wired to forget so we can have proper memory function.
9) By clearing the mind of past patterns and perspectives, forgetting eliminates interference from competing thoughts and keeps us from fixating on a single set of ideas or things we already know.
10) Forgetting is at the heart of thinking of something new and different.
11) And contrary to the notion forgetfulness reflects a withering of brain cells, scientists say it can actually be driven by the growth of new neurons in the hippocampus, a brain region linked to memory.
12) According to Michael Anderson, a professor of cognitive neuroscience at the University of Cambridge, “Forgetting is what we want and need to do, while remembering is the human frailty.”
13) So now you know: the ability to forget is crucial to healthy memory and how the brain works.

Just don’t forget this.
14) If you want more distilled infusions of clarity and inspiration, check out the Stray Reflections book.

An antidote to the great angst of modern life. 👇🏼
strayreflectionsbook.com

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More from @jsmian

14 Feb
1) Stray Reflections is now 7 years old.

But I *almost* gave up multiple times on the journey.

This is that story. 👇🏼
2) By 2017, I had been writing for nearly three years and the business was generating no more than $40,000 in revenue.

My savings had run out. We were living month to month.
3) Mark Twain’s guidance for writers felt to me like a condemnation:

“Write without pay until somebody offers pay; if nobody offers within three years, sawing wood is what you were intended for.”
Read 25 tweets
7 Feb
1) Do you ever find yourself striving for perfection, and then being disappointed because it always eludes you?

THREAD 👇
2) As a young student in Hamburg, Peter Drucker went to see the opera every week.

He had very little money, but showing up an hour before the performance meant scoring any of the unsold cheap seats allocated to university students for free.
3) Upon one evening, he sat for Falstaff.

“I have never forgotten the impression that evening made on me,” he said, totally overwhelmed by Giuseppe Verdi’s comic opera.
Read 12 tweets
4 Feb
1) It is our lot to see things differently.

Bystanders look for a long time—free of constraints, unobscured by their own judgments, waiting patiently to grasp the essential truth.
stray-reflections.com/article/177/Th…
2) What we see is that the ICT revolution is far from complete and that rather than a dystopian, divisive future, what lies ahead is a green socially sustainable golden age.
stray-reflections.com/article/173/Fu…
3) We also see through the mist of the pandemic. The outlook is uninspiring, even with the vaccine breakthroughs.
stray-reflections.com/article/175/Th…
Read 5 tweets
28 Jan
1) If you're not reflecting on risk management after this week's events then what are you even doing?

Here's a thread on some basic thoughts on how to better manage risk and mistakes going forward:
2) First of all, given where we are in the investment cycle, focus more intently on the downside than the upside.
3) Slow down if you see a loss of money on any position. That should put you on high alert.

Keep looking for disconfirming evidence.
Read 10 tweets
2 Jan
"What important truth do very few people agree with you on?"

My heretical answer to Peter Thiel's favorite interview question. 🔥
1) If you want to be successful, surrender.
2) Before you ask me what I mean by surrender, ask yourself what it means to be successful.
Read 8 tweets
27 Dec 20
1) This year has been difficult for many investors, whether you are a novice or an experienced risk taker.

It would be useful to revisit today's money masters and see how they dealt with gut-wrenching loss.

It always helps renew my ambition. THREAD 👇
2) Paul Tudor Jones lost $10,000 when he was 22, and when he was 25 he lost about $50,000, which was all he had to his name.
3) In 1979, PTJ's fourth year in the business, he lost over 60% of the equity in his clients’ accounts on a single cotton trade that went horribly wrong.

“I am not cut out for this business," he said. "I don’t think I can hack it much longer.”
Read 18 tweets

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